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(sz) The Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine (CCRM) announced today an increase in in vitro fertilization (IVF) success rates to 80 percent from its Institutional Review Board-approved clinical preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) study involving comprehensive screening of all 23 pairs of chromosomes on day five embryos (blastocysts).
In May 2007, CCRM commenced this innovative, world first clinical study, which screens for all 23 pairs of chromosomes on a few cells removed from the blastocyst using a technique called comparative genomic hybridization (CGH). The small number of cells removed are destined to become future placental cells. The goal of comprehensive chromosomal screening is to reduce the likelihood of implantation failure, miscarriage, and/or aneuploid offspring (i.e., Down syndrome), by only transferring embryos that have the correct number of chromosomes. Previous PGS techniques involved screening only five to nine pairs of chromosomes.
“There are many variables that contribute to a successful pregnancy,” said William Schoolcraft, M.D., founder and medical director of the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine. “One of them is having an embryo with the correct number of chromosomes. Since a high proportion of failed pregnancies are due to abnormalities in chromosome numbers, CGH helps eliminate one variable from the equation.”
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From: »The Wall Street Journal«

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 08:00 by Stephan Zapf and is filed under Industry, Media, Science, r & d. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.